The present invention relates to well clean-out tools and, in particular, to a well clean-out tool for removing debris from a well bore in which there is little or no standing liquid in the hole.
It is frequently necessary to remove cuttings, sand, scale and other types of debris from a well bore in order to increase the productivity and/or life of the well.
Conventional well clean-out operations, such as the circulating type or hydrostatic bailing type require that the well bore be filled with liquid or at least contain a substantial liquid column. In many instances, however, the well bore cannot sustain a substantial column of liquid for a conventional clean-out operation. Those wells, therefore, cannot be efficiently cleaned out.
It is, therefore, an object of the invention to alleviate the above-discussed shortcomings.
Another object of the present invention is to provide methods and apparatus for cleaning out a well bore which does not contain a substantial column of liquid and which cannot be cleaned out by conventional methods.